1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to electrical connectors and, more particularly, to a combined card edge connector and connector nesting frame and a method of assembling an electrical connector assembly in an electronic component.
2. Prior Art
U.S. Pat. No. 4,996,766 to Piorunneck et al. discloses a bi-level card edge connector used to connect a daughter printed circuit board to a mother printed circuit board. U.S. Pat. No. 4,550,959 to Grabbe et al. discloses a card edge connector with a modular housing. U.S. Pat. No. 3,601,770 to Bowley discloses arms that are snapped onto a connector body. U.S. Pat. No. 4,655,518 to Johnson et al. discloses a backplane connector with pins connected to a daughter board.
One particular type of electrical connector used in the prior art is used to connect a printed circuit board to various electronic components in a computer such as a hard disk drive, another printed circuit board, a floppy disk drive, etc. This particular type of connector has card edge receiving areas for receiving portions of an edge of the printed circuit board and, pin receiving contacts for receiving portions of contact pins connected to the printed circuit board at the same end of the board having portions inserted into the card edge receiving areas.
A problem exists with this prior art combined card edge and card contact pin connector in that, because of the numerous and awkward electrical wires and ribbon cables between the power source, the electrical connector, and electronic components, it is time consuming and difficult to connect the electrical connector to the chassis of the computer and, to connect the electrical wires and ribbon cable to the electrical connector. This awkwardness and difficulty is even more pronounced in the smaller size computers being manufactured today. This problem is even more pronounced where the computer has the printed circuit board and electrical connector located in a bottom portion of the computer with a chassis shelf between the printed circuit board and the other electronic components, once again establishing a limited amount of work space.
It is therefore an objective of the present invention to provide a new and improved electrical connector that can overcome problems in the prior art as well as provide additional features.